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Erica Canaut, center, cheers as she and other anti-abortion activists rally on the steps of the Texas Capitol to condemn the use in medical research of tissue samples obtained from aborted fetuses, Tuesday, July 28, 2015, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Update 1:55 pm: Attorney General Ken Paxton, testifying Wednesday before a Senate panel investigating Planned Parenthood, revealed little about the ongoing investigations, instead using the opportunity to speak out against abortion in general.

“More than any misdeeds involved in the sale of aborted baby parts is the fundamental truth: the true abomination in all of this is the institution of abortion,” Paxton said.

Paxton detailed a staff member’s recent tour of an abortion facility in Houston, describing an area where fetal tissue, referred to as the “product of conception,” is examined and readied for disposal.

“Even the remains of the most vicious criminals are treated with respect,” Paxton said. “For the children that never had a chance at life, however, they become so called medical waste or, alternatively, a commodity to be bartered for.”

When questioned by senators about the ongoing investigations being conducted by his office and the state Health and Human Services Commission, Paxton repeatedly said he couldn’t offer comment.

Asked if he know if any laws had been broken, he said “at this time it’s too soon for me to answer that question.”

After more than four hours of testimony, Yvonne Gutierrez, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, said the hearing went as expected.

“It is abundantly clear, the true focus was to air anti-abortion views and further a political agenda to end access to safe, legal abortion,” Gutierrez said.

“I think that shows, in some ways, their true colors,” Schwertner said.

A lawyer for Planned Parenthood said she advised her clients not to testify publicly since they are currently under active investigation.

Original 8:15 am: AUSTIN–The Senate Health and Human Services committee is set to meet Wednesday to discuss and investigate Planned Parenthood abortion clinics in Texas after undercover video suggested that the organization was selling fetal tissue.

The committee will investigate whether Texas clinics broke any laws, and could take steps to further regulate abortion providers in the state. Planned Parenthood denies the accusations.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton plans to offer testimony at Wednesday’s meeting amid a grand jury investigation into his own potentially criminal activities. More than a year after admitting he solicited business without the proper state license, Paxton now faces a possible criminal indictment from a Collin County grand jury.

Paxton’s office and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission are conducting additional investigations into Planned Parenthood’s role in tissue donation programs.

Calls for the investigations followed the release of undercover videos featuring national Planned Parenthood officials discussing fetal tissue donation. The conversations, captured by a group of self-proclaimed “investigative journalists” called The Center for Medical Progress using hidden cameras, were graphic at times, detailing how fetuses were “crushed” to preserve organs and haggling over reimbursement fees.

While Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, apologized for the “tone and statements” made by the taped officials, she said Planned Parenthood abortion clinics were not profiting from tissue donations.

Some abortion clinics give women the option to donate fetal tissue for research, and clinics are reimbursed for costs associated with harvesting the tissue. In three undercover videos, The Center for Medical Progress accuses Planned Parenthood of turning a profit on those reimbursements.

Paxton’s chief of staff Bernard McNamee told anti-abortion activists at a rally at the Capitol Tuesday that the videos “provided the American people an ugly glimpse of a culture that demonstrates far too little respect for life.”

Texas clinics

There are currently five Planned Parenthood abortion facilities operating in Texas. The Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston is the only one that has donated tissue in recent history.

A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which operates the Houston facility, said Monday that they believe members of the undercover group toured the clinic in April.

“They provided fake identification to enter our health center under the guise of discussing research with clinical research staff,” the spokeswoman, Rochelle Tafolla, said. “We suspect that they were secretly taping those conversations and that those interactions in our facility will be included in another of their highly edited and deceptive videos.”

In written testimony provided ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast said a representative of the the shell procurement company BioMax “was shown a highly-sensitive area in a Houston clinic where tissue is processed after abortion procedures.”

The undercover group sent the Houston clinic a “procurement agreement” offering to pay “an astronomical amount compared to the minimal cost of recovery fees that tissue donation programs currently recoup,” according to the written testimony.

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast said they were “disturbed” by the offer and cut off communication with the company.

Committee members were invited to watch eight hours of video footage obtained by the attorney general’s office ahead of Wednesday’s meeting. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast believes the video was taken by The Center for Medical Progress and contains footage of the Houston clinic.

Planned Parenthood’s Texas affiliates formally petitioned the attorney general’s office to see the footage, but said they received no response.

Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, which operates three abortion facilities in North and Central Texas, notified the committee Wednesday that none of their clinics have ever participated in tissue donation, and wouldn’t be sending a representative to testify.

Undercover group

The three establishing members of The Center for Medical Progress have ties to anti-abortion causes and organizations.

Troy Newman, one of the founding members, serves as president of Operation Rescue, an activist organization associated with past violence against abortion providers. The senior policy advisor for that group, Cheryl Sullenger, was imprisoned for two years after plotting to bomb an abortion clinic in San Diego.

Congress is expected to vote this week on legislation that would cut off national funding for Planned Parenthood. The measure’s success is unlikely since Senate rules require fast-tracked bills to have 60 votes to pass and Republicans hold only 54 seats.

Planned Parenthood released a statement Tuesday that said funding abortion with federal dollars is already prohibited

Texas has already succeeded in defunding Planned Parenthood on the state level. The organization’s family planning clinics were excluded from the Texas Women’s Health Program in 2011, and will be removed from the state’s Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening program on Sept. 1.

Ken Paxton speaks after he was sworn in as the Texas attorney general, Monday, Jan. 5, 2015, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Update at 2:15 p.m.: The post has been updated to describe a second Hotze email to Paxton, and include a Paxton spokeswoman’s denial that Hotze influenced the attorney general.

Original item at 12:18 p.m.: AUSTIN — Two of Texas’ most politically active Christian conservatives have called for state Attorney General Ken Paxton to resist the Supreme Court’s gay-marriage ruling — or at least provide legal defense for resisters.

In emails sent to Paxton around the time of the court’s landmark declaration that same-sex marriage is a 50-state constitutional right, Houston-area businessman and physician Steve Hotze and Midland energy executive Tim Dunn urged the state’s top lawyer to stand strong in opposition.

“Greetings in the name of Christ our King!” Hotze said in an email to Paxton about two hours after the court issued its 5-4 ruling on June 26. “Do what the Louisiana AG has done. The illegitimate SCOTUS ruling does not name Texas, so fight those lousy bastards. They hate God and want to let the Sodomites queer our country.”

Hotze, who pasted in his email a link to a Washington Post blog item, was referring to a defiant statement by Republican Louisiana Attorney General James D. “Buddy” Caldwell.

Caldwell said he’d found no specific line in the court ruling that said that Louisiana had to obey it. “Therefore, there is not yet a legal requirement for officials to issue marriage licenses or perform marriages for same-sex couples in Louisiana,” he said.

Hotze, a major Republican campaign donor, closed with an Old Testament verse comparing “a righteous man who gives way before the wicked” with polluted water.

The Dallas Morning News obtained some of Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott’s June correspondence about upcoming Supreme Court decisions using the state’s open-records act. However, the two Republican statewide officials invoked exceptions to the law to withhold various items. They have asked Paxton’s open records unit to decide if their withholdings and redactions were appropriate.

The emails Abbott’s office released show that on the day after the court issued its gay-marriage ruling, he asked aides to print out a copy of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion so that he could read it “on the airplane later today.”

There was no further explanation. Abbott, a lawyer and former judge and state attorney general, already had issued statements responding to the court.

Paxton’s released emails show that on June 29, Dunn forwarded to him a Wall Street Journal column critical of Kennedy’s opinion by William McGurn. McGurn, once chief speechwriter to former President George W. Bush, predicted “endless litigation” would flow from the court’s action. He warned that the tax-exempt status of private Christian educational institutions could be yanked, and business owners who refuse to cooperate with same-sex weddings could feel the “full furies” of gay rights zealots.

Dunn, a Midland oilman who is the major funder of Empower Texans leader Michael Quinn Sullivan, told Paxton that McGurn wrote a “good article.”

“It seems that the AG’s office could represent citizens, churches and schools who … have their constitutional religious liberties attacked — by government,” Dunn wrote. “Particularly the federal government. That at least would take away their ability to simply bankrupt everyone with legal fees.”

A day earlier, on Sunday, June 28, Paxton released an attorney general opinion in answer to questions posed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, another GOP social conservative. Among other things, Paxton said many private lawyers “stand ready” to help defend county clerks, their employees and judges and justices of the peace who feel their religious beliefs dictate that they refuse to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples or officiate at gay weddings. Paxton said the legal services would come “in many cases on a pro-bono basis, and I will do everything I can from this office to be a public voice for those standing in defense of their rights.”

On June 24, two days before the court ruled, Hotze wrote Paxton questioning Bexar County Clerk Gerard Rickhoff’s preparations for a possible decision in favor of same-sex couples. Hotze pasted into the email portions of a San Antonio Express-News story that said Rickhoff’s employees had removed gender references from Bexar County’s marriage licenses, although the references — at the time — remained on the state marriage application.

Rickhoff “does not have the authority to change the marriage license, does he?” Hotze wrote. It’s not clear whether Paxton responded.

“In response to Lt. Gov. Patrick’s request for guidance, our office issued a legal opinion — which is a nonbinding interpretation of the law,” Paxton said spokeswoman Cynthia Meyer. “The 5th Circuit’s ruling earlier this month is consistent with our opinion, which emphasizes the importance of protecting religious liberty while enforcing the Supreme Court’s expanded definition of marriage.”

Meyer was referring to federal Circuit Judge Jerry Smith’s July 1 instructions to lower courts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. As AP reported in this story, Smith told them to conclude their gay marriage cases with orders from the district judges legalizing same-sex marriage.

Texas Ethics Commission records show that last December, Dunn gave $50,000 to Paxton, who had just won election as attorney general. Hotze, who is president of Conservative Republicans of Texas, gave Paxton $5,000.

In this June 29, 2015 photo, Jim Obergefell, the named plaintiff in the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court case that legalized same sex marriage nationwide, is backed by supporters of the courts ruling on same-sex marriage on the step of the Texas Capitol during a rally in Austin, Texas. (AP photo/Eric Gay)

AUSTIN — A Northeast Texas lawmaker has asked Attorney General Ken Paxton for a nonbinding legal opinion on whether state pension funds and vital-statistics officials jumped the gun late last month in accommodating same-sex couples.

Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van, says that state entities and local officials such as the Travis County clerk moved too fast after the Supreme Court declared on June 26 that states’ gay marriage bans are unconstitutional.

State laws continue to define marriage as between a man and a woman, he noted.

“Absent action by the Legislature, any state agency or local political subdivision action to award marriage or any other benefit arising under Texas law to same-sex couples is invalid,” Flynn wrote in an eight-page brief that accompanied his request for an attorney general’s opinion.

State representative Dan Flynn, R-Canton, works the phones during a break in the Sunday session for the 83rd Texas legislature at the State Capitol in Austin on Sunday, May 26, 2013. (Louis DeLuca/The Dallas Morning News)

As my colleagues Tom Benning, Bobby Blanchard and I reported in a story late last month, the state bureaucracy moved to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision even as state GOP leaders were denouncing it.

Beginning less than a week after the justices’ 5-4 edict, the Employees Retirement System of Texas, the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System extended health care and retirement-related benefits to spouses of gay and lesbian employees.

As Flynn noted, in late June, the Texas Department of State Health Services’ vital statistics division revamped its marriage-application forms to delete the blanks for “man” and “woman,” inserting instead “applicant one” and “applicant two.”

Flynn, who authored a major bill this year to improve the solvency of the Employees Retirement System for state workers, judges and elected officials, said he wants Paxton to provide a formal written opinion on what Texas’ marriage law currently is, whether state agencies can grant fringe benefits to same-sex spouses and whether same-sex marriage licenses issued in the state since June 26 are valid. Flynn also asked whether the pension funds can spend money on same-sex spouse benefits without legislative approval, or whether they must ask Gov. Greg Abbott to follow an emergency funding mechanism while the lawmakers are not in session.

Flynn said striking down the Texas ban on gay marriage is not the same thing as affirmatively permitting same-sex marriage.

“Texas law remains silent as to marriage other than between one man and one woman,” he wrote. “Therefore pursuant to the non-delegation doctrine [of the 10th Amendment], Texas state agencies, including DSHS, cannot act without authorization from the Legislature. Without state agency action to implement same-sex marriage, local county clerks lack authority to award same-sex marriage licenses. Therefore, any marriage licenses issued in contradiction to Texas law to date are void.”

Flynn decried what he called a “race” to carry out the Supreme Court ruling.

“Do state agencies have current authority to be adopting such policies?” he said.

He also asked Paxton for his opinion on what action the federal government could take to “implement same-sex marriage” in Texas, if Texas lawmakers do not change the state’s marriage law to include same-sex couples.

A campaign finance report filed on Wednesday shows that Paxton raised $396,000 in the last nine days of June, a truncated fundraising period after this year’s legislative session. That kept his campaign stockpile at close to the $2.6 million he had back in January.

Given the period’s short span, it’s unclear how – or if – Paxton’s legal troubles might be affecting his fundraising abilities.

The attorney general’s totals pale in comparison to the hefty sums raised by Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. But Paxton still pulled in a number of big checks from prominent GOP donors – in total, 16 contributions of $10,000 or more.

And the attorney general’s battle against the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling, for instance, has further raised his profile among Republican primary voters.

“Clearly Texans realize this is a politically motivated witch hunt and that he is doing an excellent job as attorney general in defending the state against an overreaching federal government,” Paxton campaign spokesman Anthony Holm said.

Paxton, a former state senator and representative, nonetheless has to fend off growing scrutiny into his admission last year that while he was in the Legislature, he solicited clients for a friend’s investment firm without being registered with the state.

A special prosecutor said this month that he’ll ask a Collin County grand jury to indict Paxton on first-degree felony charges of violating state securities law. A Paxton spokesman blasted the investigation as a “political hit job” by “inexperienced” lawyers.

Questions also remain over how Paxton is paying for his legal defense.

His campaign finance report lists, for instance, an $11,702 payment in late June to the Austin law firm Weisbart Springer Hayes. But Holm said that expense is “unrelated to the current Collin County events.”

Cynthia Meyer, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said no taxpayer money is going to Paxton’s legal defense. She referred other questions to Holm, who declined to discuss in more detail how Paxton is paying for his defense.

Ryan also invoked a 1983 opinion by then-Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox saying that once a justice of the peace starts marrying people, as state law allows, he or she can’t refuse to marry interracial couples. The same year, the Texas Legislature passed a law to that effect, Ryan noted. It prohibits judges and justices of the peace from discriminating on the basis of race, religion or national origin against an otherwise eligible applicant for a marriage license.

Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan (courtesy photo)

While the 1983 law “does not list discrimination against same-sex couples, the Supreme Court [last week] made clear that same-sex couples have a constitutionally protected fundamental right to marry,” Ryan wrote. Judges who do weddings have to do them for same-sex as well as opposite-sex couples, he said. Ryan made the remarks in a letter to about 40 judges and justices of the peace in Harris County, as well as Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart.

Paxton, in a nonbinding advisory opinion on gay marriage released Sunday, may have been correct in saying that private lawyers would be willing to represent clerks who are sued for refusals to issue same-sex marriage licenses, Ryan said.

But the clerks “should be fully aware” that liability insurance and bonds that they usually rely on may not kick in if a clerk in one of those lawsuits is “determined to have acted outside the scope of his or her official duties,” Ryan said.

Ryan said that county clerks “may make reasonable accommodations for a deputy clerk whose sincerely held religious beliefs will be substantially burdened by being required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.” One permissible accommodation would be to have a deputy clerk who objects hand the application off to one who doesn’t, he said. But in doing that, the county clerk “is not required to incur undue hardship” and must avoid delays or denials of marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Ryan wrote.

In a Tuesday column, the Fort Worth Star Telegram ‘s Bud Kennedy reported that some county clerks felt distressed that while Gov. Greg Abbott and Paxton encouraged them and other state employees to resist the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling, they received inadequate support from the state in preparing to handle marriage-license applications by gay couples. Using the open records law to peruse some clerks’ emails, Kennedy quoted Shelby County Clerk Jennifer Fountain as saying she could be “removed from office for failure to do my job. … Who’s going to pay the judgment against me?”

In his advisory opinion responding to a request by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Paxton, a Republican social conservative, said religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment “may allow accommodation” of clerks and their employees who have religious beliefs that same-sex marriage is wrong and object to issuing licenses to gay couples. He said a number of state and federal laws and constitutional provisions could protect recalcitrant clerks and deputy clerks. But he said it depends on the circumstances in each case.

Similarly, Paxton said judges and justices of the peace with religious objections may rebuff requests that they officiate at same-sex weddings, especially if their colleagues in their areas are receptive to doing so. He again hedged, though, and noted, “The strength of any such claim depends on the particular facts of each case.”

Ryan strongly disagreed that the judges and justices of the peace may opt out of officiating at gay weddings because of religious objections. He cited Mattox’s 1983 opinion and the legislative debate that year of the law codifying the Democratic attorney general’s view.

“As one [justice of the peace] said, ‘if the good Lord intended us to mix it up, he’d have made us all the same color,’” said a House Judiciary Committee bill analysis, recounting testimony on the bill.

Ryan said after the Supreme Court declared gay marriage a fundamental right on Friday, judges and justices of the peace only may refuse a request to officiate at a same-sex marriage ceremony if they entirely decline to perform weddings — for anyone. If they do any at all, they must do them for all comers, including gay and lesbian couples, he wrote.

Jim Obergefell, the named plaintiff in the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court case that legalized same sex marriage nationwide, center, forms a unity chain with Texas marriage plaintiffs Mark Phariss, second from right, and Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin, fourth from right, during a news conference on the steps of the Texas Capitol, Monday, June 29, 2015, in Austin, Texas. At far right is Vick Holmes. The Supreme Court declared Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the United States. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Update at 4:15 p.m. by Tom Benning and Bobby Blanchard: The state’s bureaucracy is moving forward to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s gay-marriage decision, even as state elected officials – including Gov. Greg Abbott – have lambasted the landmark ruling.

Starting Wednesday – less than a week after the decision – the Employees Retirement System of Texas, the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M System will extend benefits to spouses of gay and lesbian employees.

That means the state’s largest employer, the State of Texas, will join the list of those providing equal benefits to same-sex partners.

The decision is latest sign that state government is accepting the ruling, which struck down gay marriage bans in Texas and other states. And that bureaucratic churn provides a notable counterbalance to the saber-rattling by Abbott and other top Republicans.

“This is all kind of new for us,” said Catherine Terrell, a spokeswoman for the Employees Retirement System of Texas. “We’re just looking at what other employers have seen.”

The state employes some 311,000 people, according to the state auditor’s office. Terrell said ERS, which handles benefits for most state employees, was anticipating that about 1,500 spouses of gay employees would now enroll for benefits.

Update at 1:44 p.m.: A long-serving Democratic senator has requested that the U.S. Department of Justice monitor how state and county officials in Texas comply with the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision — and if needed, take unspecified steps to protect gay and lesbian couples’ rights.

Houston Sen. Rodney Ellis, a 25-year veteran of the Legislature, wrote U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking that she put her department’s “full weight” behind making sure “that loving, committed couples” of the same sex are able to obtain marriage licenses in Texas.

Sen. Rodney Ellis, debating a gun law on the floor of the Texas Senate last month. (Ashley Landis/The Dallas Morning News)

He said Paxton’s opinion, though nonbinding, “significantly increases the likelihood of civil rights violations should local officials follow the legal advice and refuse to allow gay and lesbian couples to get married. … Officials who take an oath to uphold the Constitution should not be able to deny Texans’ constitutional rights with the backing of state legal guidance,” Ellis wrote.

He said Paxton’s attempt to give “blanket protection” to officials who “ignore the law based on their personal religious beliefs” might spill over to areas beyond same-sex marriage.

“Will judges be able to argue that they should not have to recognize or authorize divorces if it offends their religious sensibilities?” Ellis wrote. “Could a judge refuse to sentence a defendant to the death penalty under his or her belief that ‘thou shalt not kill’ means just that? Where does this end?”

Original item at 11:51 a.m.: AUSTIN — National and state gay rights leaders and civil liberties activists came together at the Texas Capitol Monday to blast Texas’ GOP state leaders for encouraging resistance to the Supreme Court’s gay-marriage ruling.

State Attorney General Ken Paxton came in for the lion’s share of criticism. On Sunday, he offered a nonbinding legal opinion that said some county clerks and their employees who object to issuing same-sex marriage licenses might successfully fend off lawsuits and fines if they invoke laws and constitutional provisions protecting religious liberty. Paxton offered no guarantee the officials would succeed, though he lent moral support to their resistance and said he’s sure lawyers would take their cases for free.

On Monday, Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, which is the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, told a rally on the Capitol’s north steps that Paxton is in error.

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion, which struck down gay marriage bans nationwide, including Texas, “could not be more clear,” said Griffin, an Arkansas native. “Public servants, including clerks, should serve the entire public. It’s that simple,” he said.

Griffin said Paxton’s opinion “blatantly encouraged state officials to defy the highest court in the land.” He said Paxton “is irresponsibly empowering and encouraging obstruction and delay.”

Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, which has battled religious conservatives for two decades, chided Paxton, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for statements about the court’s ruling.

The GOP state leaders “cynically suggest that the freedom to marry threatens religious freedom,” she said. “In fact, the opposite is true. … It requires no clergy to perform a wedding that violates their religious beliefs.”

Rebecca Robertson, the ACLU of Texas’ legal and policy director, said religious freedom “is absolutely protected. But that right has never been and does not mean that government officials can use their personal religious beliefs as an excuse not to follow the law.”

Rally speakers expressed delight, though, that county clerks in such Republican suburban strongholds as Collin, Denton and Williamson counties have joined counterparts in the most populous urban counties in issuing same-sex marriage licenses. The crowd cheered.

Ohio resident Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the case the Supreme Court decided Friday, told the Austin rally that the decision was “just a beginning.” The next battle is over anti-discrimination laws, he said.

“We have to keep fighting to end discrimination where it lives — in employment, in education, in public accommodations, in credit,” Obergefell said. “We have to end that now.”

Rep. Celia Israel, an Austin Democrat who is an out lesbian, said “it’s a very special time” for supporters of LGBT equality.

“You know what? I can just mosey on over to the Travis County clerk’s office and legally marry my wonderful partner of 20 years,” she said.

In a press release issued Sunday, Luke said her office would issue all marriage licenses Monday morning.

“Personally, same-sex marriage is in contradiction to my faith and belief that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Luke said. “However, first and foremost, I took an oath on my family Bible to uphold the law and as an elected public official my personal belief cannot prevent me from issuing the licenses as required.”

Original post: AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican social conservative, offered at least moral support Sunday for county clerks and their employees who feel their religious beliefs dictate that they decline to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

In a nonbinding legal opinion, Paxton said religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment “may allow accommodation of their religious objections to issuing same-sex marriage licenses.”

“Importantly, the strength of any particular religious accommodation claim depends on the particular facts of each case,” he concluded.

“But,” he added in a press release, “numerous lawyers stand ready to assist clerks defending their religious beliefs, in many cases on a pro-bono basis, and I will do everything I can from this office to be a public voice for those standing in defense of their rights.”

Paxton’s opinion also said justices of the peace and judges similarly may rebuff requests that they officiate at same-sex weddings, especially if their colleagues in their areas are receptive to doing so.

Judges and justices of the peace, Paxton wrote, “may claim that the government cannot force them to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies over their religious objections, when other authorized individuals have no objection, because it is not the least restrictive means of the government ensuring the ceremonies occur.”

Again, he noted, “The strength of any such claim depends on the particular facts of each case.”

Paxton wrote in response to a request for an attorney general’s opinion from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday morning declared a 50-state constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Patrick announced that late Thursday, he asked Paxton for a nonbinding legal opinion. Patrick asked whether county clerks and their employees could invoke a recently passed “pastor protection act” if they refuse to grant a same-sex marriage license. He also asked whether judges and justices of the peace could invoke the law to shield themselves from lawsuits or harm if they ducked requests to officiate.

Patrick, also a Republican social conservative, acknowledged many Americans felt Friday was a history-making day.

“I would rather be on the wrong side of history than on the wrong side of my faith and my beliefs,” though, he said in a statement. “I believe I am not alone in that view in this country.”

Neel Lane, a San Antonio lawyer for the same-sex couples who challenged Texas’ gay marriage ban in federal court, said Friday that state and local officials who refuse to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling set themselves up for costly lawsuits. Lane said private citizens could file federal civil rights lawsuits, which are called “Section 1983″ claims, against recalcitrant state and local officials. Other lawyers supportive of gay rights have said gay and lesbian couples who are refused marriage licenses could ask U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio to hold the particular county clerk in contempt of court. Garcia has issued an injunction against enforcement of Texas laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

In his advisory opinion to Patrick, Paxton said nothing that I could find about the recently passed “pastor protection act.” He noted that county clerks could delegate their duty to issue marriage licenses to subordinates. He implied that might solve the conundrum for a clerk who feels issuing a same-sex marriage license would violate a sincerely held religious belief. But what if the employees feel similarly?

Paxton noted that under Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA) passed in the 1990s by both the Texas Legislature and Congress, “deputy clerks and other employees may have a claim that forcing the employee to issue same-sex marriage licenses over their religious objections is not the government’s least restrictive means of ensuring a marriage license is issued, particularly when available alternatives would not impose an undue burden on the individuals seeking a license.”

Paxton wrote that if everyone in a clerk’s office has a religious objection, and if the office is still issuing licenses to opposite-sex couples, “it is conceivable that an applicant for a same-sex marriage license may claim a violation of the constitution.” Completely refusing to issue marriage licenses to anyone, gay or straight, also would be problematic, he wrote. The two RFRAs, the state and federal constitutions, state employment laws, state laws on clerks’ duties all may come into play, depending on the facts of a scenario, he said. He said the two RFRAs might protect objecting judges and justices of the peace, as long as others who legally may officiate at weddings, including clergy, are willing to do so. He noted state law doesn’t require judges or justices of the peace to conduct any wedding ceremony.

Essentially, Paxton invited clerks, their employees and the judges and justices of the peace to defy the Supreme Court. But he didn’t promise they’ll win.

Paxton again blasted the five justices who struck down state bans on gay marriage, calling them an “activist court” that created “judge-made law.”

In his release, he said the Supreme Court “again ignored the text and spirit of the Constitution to manufacture a right that simply does not exist.” That weakens the rule of law, he said, though that shouldn’t “weaken our resolve to protect religious liberty and return to democratic self-government in the face of judicial activists attempting to tell us how to live.”

Paxton said “hundreds” of public officials in the state are seeking guidance on how they can reconcile personal religious beliefs with their oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution.

In a footnote, he wryly observed, “It would be curious indeed for an oath that ends with ‘so help me God’ to mandate that the oath-taker set aside those very beliefs.”

The opinion continued, “In recognizing a new constitutional right in 2015, the Supreme Court did not diminish, overrule, or call into question the rights of religious liberty that formed the first freedom in the Bill of Rights in 1791. This newly minted federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage can and should peaceably coexist with longstanding constitutional and statutory rights, including the rights to free exercise of religion and freedom of speech.”

You can read Paxton’s opinion here. His press release, which you can see here, ended on a note of defiance and solidarity.

“Texas must speak with one voice against this lawlessness, and act on multiple levels to further protect religious liberties for all Texans, but most immediately do anything we can to help our county clerks and public officials who now are forced with defending their religious beliefs against the court’s ruling,” Paxton said.

Austin lawyer Jody Schenske, who has represented same-sex couples who were married in other states and sought divorces in Texas, scoffed at Paxton’s opinion.

Update at 3:13 p.m.: Post has been updated with Abbott spokesman’s clarification.

Update at 2:15 p.m.: AUSTIN — A lawyer for the Texas gay-marriage lawsuit plaintiffs said Friday afternoon that Gov. Greg Abbott is asking for a lot of additional lawsuits that will be expensive for the state when he encourages resistance to the Supreme Court’s decision.

Hours after the ruling, Abbott sent a memo to the heads of state agencies directing them to “preserve, protect, and defend the religious liberty of every Texan.” That order “applies to any agency decision,” including granting or denying benefits, managing state employees and making decisions on or enforcing contracts, licenses and permits, the memo says.

Abbott said agency heads “should ensure that no one acting on behalf of their agency takes any adverse action against any person, as defined in Chapter 311 of the Texas Government Code, on account of the person’s act or refusal to act that is substantially motivated by sincere religious belief.”

The section of state law says “person” includes a “corporation, organization, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, and any other legal entity.”

In the just-ended legislative session, state Rep. Scott Sanford, R-McKinney, unsuccessfully pushed a bill that, among other things, would have shielded religiously affiliated child-welfare organizations that object to working with gay foster or adoptive parents. (See bottom of original post below for more.)

In an email, John Wittman, Abbott’s deputy press secretary, did not specifically confirm that Abbott was thinking about such child-placing agencies.

“The directive ensures that individuals doing business with the state cannot be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs,” he said.

Wittman specifically dismissed as inaccurate a Texas Tribune report quoting an unnamed Abbott aide as saying that the governor’s memo means that a human resources director at a state agency could deny benefits to a state employee’s same-sex spouse if the director had strong religious beliefs that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

“The governor’s directive does not authorize or order state agencies to deny benefits to same-sex couples,” Wittman wrote.

“There will be lawsuits,” Lane said as his clients and the head of the gay rights group Equality Texas held a news conference at the LBJ Library in Austin. “You cannot deny a citizen’s rights under color of state law,” which means an official’s action performed as part of his government duty, Lane said. He said that lawyers could win from the state court costs and attorney fees by filing federal suits against state and local officials who deny people their constitutional rights — such as, now, same-sex marriage.

“I’m astonished that the chief executive of Texas is encouraging state officials not to follow the law based on religious beliefs,” Lane said.

Update at 11:53 a.m.: U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia has lifted the stay on his opinion that initially declared Texas’ ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional.

In a short, one-paragraph order issued soon after the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Garcia said he was lifting the delay he imposed on Feb. 26, 2014, that had stopped his decision from going into effect until higher courts could rule. Friday’s order dissolved that stay and also prohibited Texas officials from enforcing the state’s constitutional bar on acknowledging same-sex marriages, “and other laws or regulations prohibiting a person from marrying another person of the same sex or recognizing same-sex marriage.”

The order, for all intents and purposes, appears to enjoin state officials from trying to stop gay marriages in Texas.

Update at 10:21 a.m.: AUSTIN — The Supreme Court’s long-awaited ruling that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right brought rapturous joy to many gay and lesbian Texans Friday.

“We thank the Supreme Court for the best wedding gift one could ever receive, the ability to marry,” said Plano lawyer Mark Phariss, who plans to wed his 17-year partner Vic Holmes in November. “Today’s decision reaffirms the American principles of freedom, justice and equality for all. Let freedom ring!”

In the political arena, only Texas Democrats were pleased.

“Love won today. Texas Democrats joyfully celebrate,” state Democratic chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement. “Our state and country are finally on the right side of history. However, there’s still a group of narrow-minded Republican lawmakers standing on the wrong side. We will remain vigilant to ensure that the right to marry is not infringed.”

GOP state leaders, though, blasted the court’s ruling as an overreach. Some scoffed that it was the worst sort of judicial activism.

Attorney General Ken Paxton, also a Republican, called the decision “a radical departure from countless generations of societal law and tradition.”

In a statement, Paxton compared the marriage decision with the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion. He called the declaration of a right to same-sex marriage another example of how the U.S. Constitution, a guarantor of liberty, “can be molded to mean anything by unelected judges.”

The court’s ruling will embolden aggressive activists, Paxton said. He vowed to protect “people who take personal, moral stands based upon their conscience and the teachings of their religion.”

Abbott agreed, saying in a statement, “No Texan is required by the Supreme Court’s decision to act contrary to his or her religious beliefs regarding marriage.”

“It’s a harrowing day in America when unelected judges have the power to upend an institution that has been widely recognized as a virtuous force in society,” he said in a statement. “This decision is just another example of Washington DC elites ruling against the will of the American people and usurping power from the states.”

Two of the “Liberty 8,” a group of very conservative GOP freshmen in the Texas Senate, said the decision tramples on the 10th Amendment, which says powers not given to the federal government by the Constitution are “reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

“It is a shame that once again the Supreme Court has decided to ignore the 10th Amendment … and decided to legislate from the bench and impose their will on the states,” said Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock.

State Sen. Konni Burton, a tea party-backed Fort Worth Republican, responded to a Twitter query on whether “we have any states’ rights left” this way: “It appears we do not.”

American Airlines, based in the Republican stronghold of Tarrant County, had a different reaction.

“We’re on board. Diversity strengthens us all & today we celebrate #MarriageEquality & the landmark #SCOTUS decision,” the airline tweeted.

In major Texas cities, supporters of gay marriage planned to hold press conferences and celebrations Friday.

“I look forward to attending a lot of summer weddings!” said Democratic state Rep. Celia Israel of Austin, who has said she looks forward to marrying her long-time female partner in Texas.

Rep. Donna Howard, an Austin Democrat, said in a statement she’s glad the law is catching up with people’s recognition “that the institution of marriage is defined by love and commitment, and not by gender.”

Original item at 9:22 a.m.: AUSTIN — Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick sought an attorney general’s opinion Friday on whether county clerks and their employees who have religious objections may balk at issuing same-sex marriage licenses under a recently passed law.

The law, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed, protects pastors and churches who don’t want to assist gay weddings from lawsuits and penalties.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that the federal Constitution guarantees a nationwide right to same-sex marriage.

Just over 90 minutes before the ruling, Patrick, who has made opposition to gay marriage and support for tighter restrictions on abortion two of his signature issues, wrote fellow Republican and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to ask for a nonbinding legal opinion.

Patrick asked Paxton whether the new law, which some call the “pastor protection act,” would protect clerks and their employees if they refuse to grant a same-sex marriage license. Patrick also asked if the new law allows a refusal to perform gay marriage not just by pastors but others who under Texas law may perform marriage ceremonies — judges and justices of the peace.

“If the Supreme Court declares a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, can a county clerk or his or her employees refuse to issue a same-sex marriage license if doing so would violate their sincerely held religious beliefs on marriage?” he wrote. “Lastly, could a justice of the peace or a judge refuse to conduct a same-sex wedding ceremony if doing so would violate their sincerely held religious beliefs on marriage? Texans have clearly spoken that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Should the U.S. Supreme Court rule contrary to the voice of Texas, the answers to these questions are important.”

Patrick said in a statement that he’s worried that “county clerks and justices of the peace could be forced to subjugate their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Update at 6:09 p.m.: Leaders of two groups supporting gay marriage, Chuck Smith of Equality Texas and Nick Hudson of Texas for Marriage, said in a statement late Thursday that many county clerks would uphold the U.S. Constitution by following the Supreme Court’s lead — and “without delay” — if it declares same-sex marriage a 50-state right.

Neel Lane, lawyer for the two couples that challenged Texas’ gay marriage ban, questioned Paxton’s authority to tell county clerks what to do.

“The attorney general will have no standing to delay the issuance of marriage licenses if the Supreme Court rules that same-sex marriage is the law of the land,” Lane said in a statement. “Attorney generals aren’t supposed to be in the business of praying but in the business of interpreting the law, and in this case the Supreme Court is going to be quite clear when it rules. Clerks should not delay any further.”

Original item at 5:01 p.m.: AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is warning county clerks in Texas not to be too quick in handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples if the U.S. Supreme Court declares a 50-state constitutional right for gays and lesbians to marry.

“I would recommend that all county clerks and justices of the peace wait for direction and clarity from this office about the meaning of the court’s opinion and the rights of Texans under the law,” Paxton said in a statement Thursday. He noted the Supreme Court is about to rule in a case brought from the federal appeals court circuit covering Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

Paxton’s move comes as county clerks in some highly populous Texas counties, such as Democrat John Warren of Dallas County, have said they would move rapidly to comply if the justices strike down state prohibitions on gay marriage. In Thursday’s paper, my colleague Melissa Repko wrote this story about Warren’s plans.

The Republican state attorney general’s action comes about four months after confusion reigned in Alabama. There, a federal district judge struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court ordered county probate judges not to issue same-sex marriage licenses. But the federal judge countermanded that order. As a result, gays and lesbians were able to marry in some counties but not in others. A few weeks later, the state Supreme Court ruled that Alabama’s gay marriage ban remained in force, and told the probate judges to await the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling.

In his Thursday statement, Paxton accurately stated that Texas defines marriage as between a man and a woman. However, he may have confused readers about the U.S. Constitution. He said it “clearly does not speak to any right to marriage other than one man and one woman.”

Though Paxton appears to hint that activist judges would be finding a constitutional right to same-sex marriage where none exists, the federal Constitution doesn’t mention marriage.

“I remain prayerful,” Paxton said, that the court will bow to tradition and “respect the role of the states.” But he added, “If the court suggests otherwise, prudence dictates we reflect on precisely what the court says, what it means, and how to proceed consistent with the rule of law.”

As Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Thursday a bill shielding Texas churches and pastors from civil suits or government penalties for refusing to assist gay marriages, state Attorney General Ken Paxton said the measure is fine, so far as it goes. But “it’s not enough,” Paxton said in a statement.

He called for state GOP leaders and voters to do more to defend businesses such as wedding cake bakers and photographers who he said will be harassed by “a small but loud chorus” of gay-rights advocates “and the few corporate cronies cowed by them.”

The Republican attorney general was referring to Fortune 500 corporations such as Apple that have frowned on recent actions by state legislatures to undercut a possible Supreme Court declaration of same-sex marriage as a 50-state right.

Paxton took a much sterner tone after the bill-signing than Abbott. Both have pointed to a better than 3-to-1 vote by Texans nearly a decade ago to ban gay marriage in an amendment to the state constitution.

Perhaps mindful of changing attitudes among younger adults, Abbott since 2005 has been less provocative. Last year, when a federal judge struck down the Texas ban, he acknowledged that it’s an issue on which reasonable people can disagree.

On Thursday, though, Paxton gave a full-throated defense of traditional views of marriage, painting a menacing picture: “What about the wedding photographer, the event planner, the caterer, the bed and breakfast owner, cake baker or any other Texas small business owner who is threatened or sued for carrying out their work according to their faith?”

“What about the religiously affiliated adoption agency that believes it should only place a child in a home with traditional marriage? What about the private school that teaches traditional marriage but is told it is an ‘issue’? Will that school lose its 501(c)3 tax-exempt status, as was suggested by the U.S. solicitor general while arguing against traditional marriage in the Supreme Court?”

Paxton was clear on who’s behind the threat. “Whatever the court decides, the people of Texas and its leadership must not sit idly by in the face of hostility and harassment at the hands of a small but loud chorus of activists and the few corporate cronies cowed by them who denounce Texans simply for standing in defense of traditional marriage.”

Even gay-rights activists and civil liberties groups, as well as Democrats, ended up supporting the bill Abbott signed. It would bar civil lawsuits and state penalties against pastors, churches and religious institutions that refuse to open their facilities to, sell items for or officiate at marriages if doing so would violate a “sincerely held religious belief.”

Sponsors of the bill said their intent was limited to marriage ceremonies — and not other matters raised by some early opponents of the bill, such as honoring advanced medical care directives of same-sex partners.

“Freedom of religion is the most sacred of our rights and our freedom to worship is secured by the Constitution,” Abbott said in a statement.

“Religious leaders in the state of Texas must be absolutely secure in the knowledge that religious freedom is beyond the reach of government or coercion by the courts.”